OPINION:
In response to “Republika Srpska deserves independence” (Web, Feb. 9), I respectfully offer a corrective grounded in history and law.
The 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, brokered and decisively supported by the U.S., ended the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II. The agreement remains one of the most consequential American foreign policy successes of the post-Cold War era. Dayton did not create three states; it affirmed one sovereign Bosnia and Herzegovina, composed of two entities and three constituent peoples.
Crucially, Dayton contains no provision granting any entity the right to secede. Advocating unilateral independence is therefore not an exercise of constitutional freedom but a repudiation of the very agreement that guarantees Republika Srpska’s existence.
To undermine Dayton is to diminish a landmark American diplomatic achievement.
Equally misleading is the narrative of an Islamist takeover. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a secular, pluralistic democracy, a member of the Council of Europe, a partner of NATO and a candidate for European Union membership.
Like many other Western nations, it faced the challenge of a small number of foreign fighters a decade ago. It prosecuted returnees and strengthened cooperation with international security services. Isolated cases do not define a nation.
Bosnia today reflects not extremism but postwar recovery: functioning state institutions, peaceful elections, interfaith engagement and steady integration into Euro-Atlantic structures. Its progress, imperfect yet real, stands as evidence that American-led diplomacy can produce durable peace.
Secessionist rhetoric risks destabilizing a region that has already paid dearly for fragmentation. Stability in the Balkans has come through integration, not division.
Bosnia and Herzegovina deserves to be recognized not as a failure but as a testament to successful American peace building.
MUFTI MUSTAFA CERIC
Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
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